


not good with animals (plus zote)

by Schnikeys_Discuss (Schnikeys)



Series: Clockie's Meta [11]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Analysis, Archived from radioactivesupersonic Blog, Character Analysis, Gen, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-06
Updated: 2019-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:40:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27055813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schnikeys/pseuds/Schnikeys_Discuss
Summary: "Was thinking about Hollow Knight and how the completion of the Hunter’s journal requires killing things like maskflies, aluba, and shrumelings that are harmless to the player suggesting something about Ghost’s relationship with animals."
Series: Clockie's Meta [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1974223
Kudos: 9





	not good with animals (plus zote)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ClockworkRainbow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClockworkRainbow/gifts).



Was thinking about _Hollow Knight_ and how the completion of the Hunter’s journal requires killing things like maskflies, aluba, and shrumelings that are harmless to the player suggesting something about Ghost’s relationship with animals.

I doubt Ghost is actively a bully, but, having come from a completely bleak environment that even the Hunter wonders if there’s actually anything alive down there, they’re probably a little under-equipped to deal with animals besides the very oblivious shadow crawlers, and as someone whose earliest education was a brutal self-taught lesson in survival, it’s fair to assume that, at least at the beginning of their journey, Ghost would see attacking and defeating, if not killing things, as their only way to exercise their curiosity. By the time they arrive at Dirtmouth, they discover another avenue is listening to people, but that may be just based on someone taking initiative and talking to them first. So Elderbug _may_ have inadvertently taught Ghost interpersonal social skills. 

(but, I stand by my headcanon that Ghost actually is incredibly prone to clinging to people who actually nurture them / fill family roles so they latched onto Elderbug pretty fast in general)

Regardless, I don’t think Ghost is a regular Disney Princess. Even learning more avenues of interaction, I know personally as a _Hollow Knight_ player, my benevolence towards shrumelings hinges entirely on whether or not I really need that extra bit of soul right that second, and given the game’s prototype, _Hungry Knight_ , I would imagine that having a depleted soul meter is an uncomfortable sensation to Ghost- they would rather feel ‘sated’ even if they lack a mouth or a conventional sense of digestion. Late-game power ups like Salubra’s Blessing would imply that becomes less of a problem for them so it might be that Ghost, in their development towards the Shade Lord, starts out near-indiscriminately aggressive and mellows out considerably throughout the course of the game.

Albeit, they’d probably still ultimately be pretty fight-happy. You can take the kid out of the abyss but you can’t take the formative trauma and resulting anger out of the kid, and all.

Ultimately, though, this would probably mean outside of like, the Grimmchild which is a fireball-launching toddler companion rather than a pet, or the hatchlings / weaverlings produced by the Glowing Womb and Weaversong charms, which tend to live short existences because they fight and die for the holder’s benefit, which doesn’t make them ideal pets- Ghost probably is not very good with animals.

(I mean you could argue re: Weaversong since its description and the Midwife’s comments on it make it seem more amenable to the weaverlings being friendly and Ghost having a soft spot for them, but even then, they’re still basically magical constructs, so the takeaway might be that Ghost is no good with _natural_ animals but has a soft spot for arcane homunculi)

But my brain ran away with this concept and ended up looking towards Hornet and the upcoming game _Silksong_ , wondering what Hornet’s relationship with animals might be. My initial thought might be that as someone who actually did have some magnitude of a social background, albeit who reads impressively autistic, Hornet is probably a little / lot more live and let live than Ghost; she seems the type to focus on things that are a danger or obstacle and try to destroy them precisely, so I doubt she’d be hunting for curiosity as the Hunter describes both himself and Ghost.

On the other hand, though, Hornet’s also a spider, and unlike Ghost, sustains herself on something other than magic. And coming from the Weaver culture, it’s worth noting the Midwife seems to have very little qualms eating non-weaver sapient bugs, and her position would suggest Deepnest’s culture doesn’t frown on this that much. (The Distant Village and its trap chamber seems to imply Herrah’s worshipers, if not the queen herself, certainly stocked their larder with sapient bugs from time to time)

This leads to the possibility that Hornet doesn’t have much malice to small animals, but would have a certain matter-of-fact inclination to evaluate them as food. Unless her godly blood from the Pale King means she’s able to sustain herself on energy alone she’s presumably eating _something_ down in the caves.

The irony of this is that while Zote talks about eating and drinking, he also suggests he’s more of a (comparative) city slicker than Ghost or Hornet, since he talks about staying in a house and keeping it clean in his precepts, so he might not be especially inclined to hunting for food- even traveling, either bringing something with him or foraging the more verdant areas are more frugal than risking injury testing his comparatively limited fighting skills against something large enough to make a meal out of.

End result? Zote might ironically be the nicest to animals out of the three. I’m just imagining him sitting in Greenpath grumbling angrily about these annoying animals after his lunch while he’s festooned in perching maskflies.

* * *

Tags: [#Zote angrily sprinkling seeds for the birds](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/Zote-angrily-sprinkling-seeds-for-the-birds) [#'utterly disgusting you freeloaders'](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/%27utterly-disgusting-you-freeloaders%27) [#the maskflies leave his person en masse to peck up the treats](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/the-maskflies-leave-his-person-en-masse-to-peck-up-the-treats)

* * *

Sure, you might say, Zote’s kind of selfish so he might not be nice to animals, but, counterpoint: if Zote seemingly making a permanent decision to stay in Dirtmouth as soon as Bretta started listening to him and being nice to him even slightly is an indication the man is actually a _colossal_ sucker for unconditonal positive regard.

This is someone who in a human AU would complain for five hours about how annoying and gross and slobbery a dog is and then ends up getting one because a stray wandered up and put its head in his lap so you catch him three days later with something that is far too big to be a lapdog crammed in his lap anyway while he complains about it licking his face and does nothing to stop it.

* * *

Tags: [#half my lack of enmity towards Zote is just](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/half-my-lack-of-enmity-towards-Zote-is-just) [#he feels like someone who runs his mouth rudely all the time and lacks genuine cruelty to it](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/he-feels-like-someone-who-runs-his-mouth-rudely-all-the-time-and-lacks-genuine-cruelty-to-it) [#Tiso genuinely relishes the idea of killing Ghost in the ring](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/Tiso-genuinely-relishes-the-idea-of-killing-Ghost-in-the-ring) [#Emilitia won't let rare gifts or the King's Brand even slightly sway her classist contempt](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/Emilitia-won%27t-let-rare-gifts-or-the-King%27s-Brand-even-slightly-sway-her-classist-contempt) [#Zote basically is just miserable and carelessly dumps it out his mouth all the time](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/Zote-basically-is-just-miserable-and-carelessly-dumps-it-out-his-mouth-all-the-time) [#he'll complain about Ghost but he'll just as easily hold a grumpy but sincere conversation with them](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/he%27ll-complain-about-Ghost-but-he%27ll-just-as-easily-hold-a-grumpy-but-sincere-conversation-with-them) [#out of the game's rude characters he's on par with Lemm](https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/tagged/out-of-the-game%27s-rude-characters-he%27s-on-par-with-Lemm)

**Author's Note:**

> Analyses originally found here: <https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/post/183269271420/was-thinking-about-hollow-knight-and-how-the>  
> <https://radioactivesupersonic.tumblr.com/post/183269430755/sure-you-might-say-zotes-kind-of-selfish-so-he>


End file.
